Protect Yourself From Hackers...

[Samantha Carter]

I am Starting this Thread as to help anyone that wants to do their best at making a hackers life as hard as possible to get your account. Now I will say that where there is a will there is a way so there is no ultimate protection against a threat and all we can do is take the measures that eliminate as many options as possible. If anyone has other ideas and would like to add to this list please feel free to post and I will add to the main Entry here and give credit where due. That being said Here is your checklist

Use Virus Scanner:
In Todays day and age its suicide to run without some sort of virus protection. Many will debate with which is the best, but its been my finding that the top name brands are usually all about equal. And Keep your protection up to date. New viruses are coming out on a daily basis and old protection will do you no good.
Suggestions:Symantec , McAfee , Free AVG

Use Ad remover program:
This wont in itself protect you against a threat, however as these spyware programs are getting smarter and its not a bad idea to keep up to date on this
Suggestions: AdAware , The Cleaner , Spybot

Use A Firewall:
Hardware or software will do. Alot of Routers these days have built in firewalls that you can configure. If you do not use a router there are plenty of software versions that do their job well. Ensure that your firewall is set to default Deny. Things that you do that hit the firewalls flags can easily be accepted and then you won't have that problem again.
Suggestions Software: BlackICE , Zone Alarm or Symantec
Suggestions Hardware: DLink ,LinkSys

Know What your computers doing:
It is important that you know what software is running on your computer. Often times people neglect to check their running processes and applications to see if there is anything out of the normal. These extra programs could very well be trojan viruses or other malicious software that will prevent you from using your computer to its optimal use or try and steal your sensitive information.
Suggestions: Windows Task Mananger, Whats Running , Process Explorer

Only Download software from the Original site:
Many websites will compile like products on one site for ease of download. However the problem is questioning the legitimacy of such sites. Sometimes these sites are branded and fine for downloading, however this is not always true. Some sites out there will add viruses to the software so that when you download them you are screwed. The only way to be sure you are getting authentic software is to go direct to their site.

Don't open emails with attachments:
Unless you are expecting something from somebody there is no reason to open emails with attachments EVER. If you don't know them at all then don't even open the email with or without attachments, Just delete it. If you do happen to open an email with an attachment and you start finding things are fishy you may want to take measures right away. The measures should be at least a full virus scan on your system

Don't use the same email for forums that you do for PE:
Emails are so common and most are free, Set yourself up a few of them. I personally use a handful. a few with my RN for business contacts. Some with my avatar name so that i can share things with freinds in PE. And then some are just complete junk mail accounts for all those stupid sites you visit that make you enter an email before proceding with their free trial. This seems to work well for me and others as you don't get bombarded with crap on the addresss that you actually care about.

Don't use the same login name as your ingame name:
I must admit when creating an avatar this is not a clear process and im pretty sure that it can't be changed once signed up. However When i was creating mine the names that i wanted to pick were all taken and then during my avatar phase i realized that i COULD use the one i truley wanted. So i guess i lucked out in that they are different. Im not sure if MA will handle this or if you should setup a new avatar and transfer skills to the new one with this in mind as you create it. (Although i do not advice to keep both avatars in operation as its against EULA)

Use a complex password:
Complex means Capital letters, Lowercase Letters, Numbers and Special Characters (such as *$%) Also another thing to note when creating a password, Don't try to create a password that is easy to remember becuase its your favorite TV/Band/Movie or whatever you may talk about in conversation with someone. This is how social engineers will gain information about you. So try and make it something as far out as possible and something that you would never bring up in conversation (like the name you gave the zit thats on your forehead since highschool... well you get the idea)

Buy A Gold Card:
Its Only 200 PED (AND it includes shipping I mean come on!!! It will help!)

Trust people only to a certain degree:
This is your own judgement, Remember you can't see the person to their face so who knows what they are feeding you. They may not be anything you expect in RL. We have learned from recent scammer threads that people will spend ALOT of time getting to know you and getting you to trust them before they get the best of you. Why give anyone that satisfaction? There ARE BAD PEOPLE in RL and some just happen to be involved with this Virtual Universe. Unless you know the person in RL then don't loan anything that you would be upset with losing for good. And like i said this is up to your own judgement. There are a handful of people in this game that i have come to love and trust and there are circumstances where i've loaned out large equiptment to people that i have not met. LUCKILY my trust was well placed and nothing bad happened. However there is NO gaurentee that this will always occur.

I really do hope this helps some of you that maybe didn't know! And like i said if anyone has more points that perhaps I have forgot about or if i happened to post something that you are not in agreement with then by all means let me know and we can create this together. I want this to be a template for people out there as not everyone knows how to properly protect against these kinds of threats. I come from a world of helpdesk and now do software programming/testing in a secure enviornment. So alot of this is just second nature and by reading these hack/scam threads i realize not everyone knows.

SO here it is and i hope you can benifit!

[Edit] Added A few things here to the list. Everyone in this thread has donated much to this topic and I want to thank everyone equally. Some of the things in this main topic have been taken out of suggestion from the following posts. I have not named everyone specificly but everyone here has helped so thank you. Not everything posted has to do with hack prevention, but there are alot of great related topics here as well. Things to do if you were hacked etc... Again thanks to everyone, and hopefully we can make this EU experience that much more enjoyable

[Michyblueyes]

Very good genral advice, id like to add two thing

1) Another good guide with software link for genral computer maintance and secuity

General Computer Maintenance

2) Also a good tool witch i dont think is on that guide Htnetchk, or microsoft baseline secuirty analyser good for finidng our of date software no just the OS and will give a good genral audit of ur computer secuirty.

[Squee]

Good post. These security tips cant be spammed enough on the forum!!! I started a topic about this a while ago also, and its nice to see that im not the only one so consered id right a piece about it. Iv'e got some tips in there that aren't mentioned here... Probably worth a look to check those out..

For extra reference:
More Safety Measures

But at some point you must just admit to yourself that the human race is just ignorant and foolish

[J D]

Great Thread, with some great additional links.

We will make sure we link to these, through-out our website!

[Samantha Carter]

Thanks for the input guys, I have updated my original post with some additional information that was not in my head at the time of creating this.

Perhaps we can get a sticky on this and keep it up to date and in the front of peoples minds.

[Mac]

I have read that although you should run software firewalls if you don't have anything else, hardware firewalls are better then software firewalls for various reasons. Granular configurability being one of them. When I look around for hardware firewalls, I only find them for a corporate environment that run into the thousands of $ to purchase and maintain. Does anyone know of a good hardware firewall solution for the home office user that won't cost more then the PC's I'm running behind them?

[Samantha Carter]

Originally Posted by Mac

I have read that although you should run software firewalls if you don't have anything else, hardware firewalls are better then software firewalls for various reasons. Granular configurability being one of them. When I look around for hardware firewalls, I only find them for a corporate environment that run into the thousands of $ to purchase and maintain. Does anyone know of a good hardware firewall solution for the home office user that won't cost more then the PC's I'm running behind them?

Well there are plenty of corporate solutions that will cost Thousands of dollars to install but they only really provide the capability of loads of connections passing though. If you are just running at home or small office then i would just suggest a router that has firewall built in already. Some examples are as follows. You can also find wireless routers that have built in firewalls if wireless is your choice.


http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=62
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...lance&n=172282

[The Ripper]

Always looking after ppl eh Sam

gr8 thread, things like these should become a sticky imo (if not already :P )

rip

[Airedale]

One feature I like about software firewalls is that you can set some of them to deny outgoing data from your computer.

Zone Alarm is free and if a keylogger tries to transmit your sign on to another computer, it will notify you and ask you if you want to allow it.

http://www.zonealarm.com/

I use Zone Alarm AND a hardware firewall. You can't be too careful.


+rep for starting the thread

[PECalc]

It's easy to build your own hardware firewall. Get an extra computer, it's ok if it's a slow, old computer. (~400+mhz) Put two ethernet cards in it. Get some crossover CAT-5 cables, and connect your PC to the extra computer, then connect the extra computer to the internet. Run FreeBSD or Linux Router Project software on the extra computer, or even Windows + some windows routing + firewalling + other security software. You will now have a hardware firewall! (If anybody starts mfg.ing these and selling them for thousands of dollars, I get 45%. Make sure you put the extra computer in a neat looking box.) The extra security bonus is that if you download or run a trojan or other virus on your computer, the virus cannot attack/disable your firewall, then transmit data. For a network/router, you can even put a hub/switch between your computer and the extra computer!